On day after girl's birthday, mother testifies in Mariha Smith murder trial

7:35 PM, July 16, 2014

Darnell Cheatham

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

The mother of a five-year-old girl whose charred body was discovered in an abandoned Detroit house took the witness stand today, one day after Mariha Smith would have turned 8.

Konesha Smith described searching inside and outside of her home on Burlingame in Detroit for her daughter during the murder trial for 22-year-old Darnell Cheatham in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.

Cheatham is accused of sexually assaulting Mariha, killing her and setting fire to an abandoned house in the 2900 block of Waverly where the girl’s burned body was discovered in July 2011.

Cheatham, who maintains his innocence, dated the girl’s aunt, Quanita Smith, and they both stayed at the home the night Mariha disappeared, according to testimony.

Konesha Smith said she fell asleep around 3 a.m. and when she woke up, her daughter, who had been sleeping on the floor in the front room near her, was gone.

She called police and when she returned from the police station, there was a fight involving her sister, Quanita Smith, she testified under cross-examination.

Quanita Smith was beaten up by members of her family, but she didn’t participate, she said.

The fight was in relation to what happened to Mariha, Konesha Smith said. Her sister moved out of the home they shared after that.

“Were you still talking to her after this fight?” asked Kareem Johnson, Cheatham’s attorney. “No,” she replied.

Later in the day, a gas station attendant testified a person came to a gas station shortly after 7:30 a.m. on July 24, and purchased $2 worth of gas, but only pumped 41 cents and didn’t come back for the change.

Mohamed Al-Masmari picked Cheatham out of a photo lineup shortly after the girl’s homicide and testified today that he told police the person looked familiar.

“I seen him somewhere, but I don’t know where,” he said, explaining why he picked that person.

Cheatham was charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, arson, torture, first-degree child abuse and disinterment and mutilation of a body.

Johnson has accused Cheatham’s girlfriend, the girl’s aunt, of being responsible for what happened to the girl. She was never charged.

Quanita Smith is expected to take the stand Thursday before Wayne County Circuit Judge Ulysses Boykin.